Exposé
by auretra
Summary: Squad Levi and the letters they write, and do not write – send, and keep.


Every chance he gets, Erd writes letters home to his young wife. Her name is Emily, and he waxes poetic about the landscape outside the walls for her comfort. He pretends it's within his skill to do so, but he's always been more of a fighter than a man of words. More often than not, when Squad Levi receives off days, Erd can be found sitting on the edge of Hanji's bed, fielding pretty words and phrases from her to describe the nature he hardly notices. Emily is a girl raised in the city, who still holds a child's fascination of life outside the walls. His letters skim over all mention of titans and Aberrants – a hard task, when his job description dictates he think of them night and day. Erd knows it upsets her, to think of him in any sort of danger. Occasionally, on tamer missions, he brings back bluebells and hyacinths on his return to base. His room always smells of the pretty flowers he keeps in his bedside drawer; the flowers that smell like Emily's perfume. He tucks them into her envelope on mail days, and hopes with quiet desperation that nothing crushes them before she can hold them in her tiny hands.

Gunter's letters are warmer – filled with the life he radiates, his handwriting loud and atrocious and messy. The letters he receives in return scold him for the honesty his accounts convey. He doesn't skip over the fleshy bits, instead recalling in blunt detail the times he's broken body parts flying into branches, his expertise at falling asleep during Erwin's meetings, teaching Eren how to take shots like a man, and laughing with Auruo when the kid spent the next twenty four hours hungover out of his mind. He asks about his father's failing health, and urges him to take walks every day like the doctor prescribed. Mail days are Gunter's favourite times at base. His mother worries more about him than he worries about himself, and sends him dried fruit she's preserved, spare gloves and scarves for when winter comes. The other members of Squad Levi know exactly where to go when they need something in spare; Gunter's medicine cabinet overflows with ointments, antibiotics, gels for aching muscles, and his pockets are filled with herbal candies. Sweet peppermints for headaches, butterscotch discs that melt beneath the tongue for when days are blue; mint toffees to suck on for nausea. He's the hero of every kid in town – known by his pseudonym "that cool candy man from the Survey Corps!"

Auruo's letters to his family are earnest; a haven where he doesn't have to pretend to be as strong as his Corporal to garner attention from the woman he covets. He writes different letters to each member of his family. To his mother, he writes of the things of hers he misses, chiefly her cooking, and her skill at mending clothes. He recounts his struggles to keep his uniform pristine; his clumsy hands and shoddy sowing skills, even admitting to seeking help from the Survey Corps girls from time to time. To his brothers, he writes of his impressive kill count, his efforts to keep in tip top shape, even taking his Corporal down in combat practice once or twice. Their letters in response praise him, reflect their envy and adulation and pride for their strong brother, risking his life to keep his family and his country safe. He doesn't write about the friends he loses – how he's been in Squad Levi the longest, lost so many brothers to the gaping dripping maws of monsters. He doesn't write of the girl he fears losing most, of his useless façade to entice her affections. He doesn't write of his knowledge of her affections for another. No; Auruo grins and bears it when his mother asks him about "that Petra girl," and when he plans to take her home. He smiles, and gives her hope; asks if she'll fix his favourite food when he gets home from his current stretch at base.

When Petra writes home, her letters become like lectures. She urges her father not to worry about her, not to attempt to line up any more marriage prospects for her, not to spend what little money he has on nice things for her – trinkets and jewelry and beautiful stones that line the inside of her dresser, collecting dust. The idea of leaving her father alone strokes a dull ache down the line of her throat. She resents herself in the quiet nights alone; resents putting her own need for freedom before the need to protect her father. He's a wonderful man, though painfully naïve in so many ways. She loathes herself for leaving him to fend for himself in the rough of their city, leaving him alone within the cold stone walls of a home she sought desperately to escape. Petra loves her father so much that she doesn't know why she stays involved in a seemingly hopeless war, sometimes. She hates the weakness she feels, so she writes two sets of letters – one set she sends to her father, in the tone of the strong Petra he lays so much faith upon, and one set she pours her fear into. Tears smear the slanted ink when she writes these letters, scrawling fast and hard about the hurt that never goes away; the futility of loving a man of so little visible emotion, the knowledge that one day she will die and leave her father all alone, or worse, live to outlast her comrades – Erd, Gunter, Auruo, Levi, the men who have become her second family, who make her base a home. These letters are shoved into her drawer, deep beneath the letters her father sends in response. His childish font is laced with so much love and adoration that it makes her guilty, to reprimand him in response.

**… . .**

Levi writes no letters, though his desk overflows with them: a medley of Gunter's mother and her tremulous overprotection; Emily's delicate, sweet love that smells of bluebells; the exuberant worship of Auruo from his brothers; and the unconditional love of Petra's father. He keeps a lock on that particular drawer, so that neither Hanji nor Eren with their curious eyes will see them, and ask why he keeps them, instead of sending them back to the families of his lost squad. It's a question he fears because it's one he (_can't answer, won't answer_) doesn't know the answer to.

The other letters – the ones Petra wrote and never sent – are kept in the breast pocket of Levi's cloak. Could she still see them, she might notice there are more smudges in the ink now than there were when they lived in the dark corner of her desk.


End file.
